I don’t really know what I mean since I’m still digesting the depth of this problem. But what we’ve seen over the past few weeks is that police brutality is nationwide and systemic. Nobody can say with a straight face that these are examples of “bad apples.” They’re clearly the rule and not the exception.
I don’t know how you fix a police culture that is so clearly oriented to be racist, brutal and completely unaccountable.
I saw a tweet showing yet another horrifying video of police brutality, with the tweeter saying, “If this doesn’t radicalize you, what will?” While that wouldn’t apply to one incident, it would certainly apply to the total sum of incidents we’ve seen over the past couple weeks, which shows police brutality to be, again, nationwide and systemic.
The problem is radical, and to me it seems that a radical solution is called for.
Genuine and sincere question: what is the moderate solution to this problem? Because these cops are ****ing horrible human beings. What you’re seeing is a problem that’s a lot more ingrained than a simple lack of positive messaging at the top.
Firstly, I greatly appreciate you're willingness to admit this is too confusing a topic to provide a simple solution. Not enough people understand their lack of understanding, myself included.
Secondly, I agree that this isn't a few individual cops but a system built on greed and corruption. I do think there are some moderate solutions, I don't know the full extent of their impact yet, obviously.
I don't think body cams are radical, they work well at showing the stark contrast between a lawful drug arrest and when a cop turns it off real quick then magically finds drugs. I don't think it would be extreme at all to wave cases where police turned off their camera. While there may be some random glitch, any jury that uses their brains can see the connection between a quick camera shutdown and a conveniently timed drug find. Cops even prefer using body cams because it also protects themselves, while you and I understand how rare it is for civilians to sew cops successfully, they get told everyday that it's a real risk and they should fear it.
Community oversight is another easy one, they tried to do it in my city but when it was passed the police just went afk. They just didn't let any civilians do ride alongs to check on police behavior. If a person who isn't tied to the police department, but still has influence, were at the scene when Floyd got choked, I can't help but believe Derek may have responded to someone with the police chief's phone number.
While fear motives aren't the most comfortable way to solve police misconduct, I think it could help.
Personally I would want both cameras and new training. People say that cops go through enough background checks and training as it is, but if a pilot is prone to random drug testing just because they fly a plane, the guy with a gun should get tested more often. There is nothing wrong with teaching cops to a higher standard.
I think ending the war on drugs would ease a lot of pressure on police too, they're busy people, and it's mostly time spend busting petty addicts and dealers. If we just taxed drugs we'd have less over doses and more money to hire better cops. At the end of the day, the issue doesn't just lie with the cops themselves, but also with the laws we chose to enforce and the punishments we pass on to "criminals."
Making it so an ex-con can never get a real job doesn't do a great job of preventing their return to illegal money. Ensuring that a petty dealer can never live in public housing again, just means he has to sell
more drugs to afford private living. We don't just have mean cops, we have a punishment system designed for private prisons to get high turnover rates. Nobody should make money on crime, that includes prisons.
You know what, you might be right, because if we don't have widespread justice reform we may never have decent policing. Not while they are made enforce poorly designed laws while doing nothing to prevent prison rape. Prisoners getting raped is just a joke to this country, we act like it's just part of their punishment, an eye for an eye. Except that most criminals aren't rapists and we aren't supposed to use "unfair and unusual" punishment.
This nation can't see gray, only black and white. If someone is in jail it must be their fault, we would rather trust authority than come to grasps with the fact that our taxes fund child rape cages. We have actually sent 14 year old boys to adult prison, let me rephrase that, we have sentenced children to rape.
I agree that it isn't bad apples, it's a bad system all around.